Disturbing Trip Of Societal Castoff

Movie Review (three star rating)

November 21, 1986|By CANDICE RUSSELL, Film Writer

There`s considerable pathos in the situation of a beautiful young woman who is found frozen to death in a farm ditch. Her body is never claimed by a friend or a relative and she is buried in a pauper`s grave.

Vagabond reconstructs the events leading up to her demise in midwinter. Her name was Mona Bergeron, a voiceover tells us, and in life she had quite an effect on the people who met her.

She is a hitchhiker defining self-sufficiency with pup tent and a smile that gets men to do her bidding. Rides, sandwiches, a warm bed are what they offer her. She`ll sleep with them when it pleases her and rebuff them when it doesn`t.

To the farm girl who helps Mona pump water into her traveling bottle, she represents freedom. To the housemaid who spies her covert, lay-about life with a long-haired hippie man in a vacant mansion, she has found the ideal love. Yet the appearance of her life to others is deceiving.

Though Mona with her tangled hair is not likable, Vagabond as written and directed by Agnes Varda makes us care about her. Abruptly rude and changeable, she walks away from comfortable circumstances the moment trouble brews. Yet at heart there is a sensitivity in Mona that can be touched by the right person. For awhile that happens to be a Moroccan vineyard worker who has to kick her out of his shabby room when his compatriots return. Once again she is on the road in the bitter cold, walking through a desolate landscape that could have been painted by 19th century artist Camille Pissarro.

It`s not so strange when Mona has the most fun in all her travels with a housebound old lady. Both women are unloved discards from society. Each manages to get on the nerves of people who come in contact with them. But together Mona and this grandmotherly woman share drinks of brandy in her cozy den and a few laughs about her hypocritical nephew who is waiting for her to die.

Too little is known of Mona`s past and that is a drawback. One can`t help but be curious about the forces that left her alienated and compelled her to seek a better life on the road. Answers of a sort come from Mona herself. She hints about one job as a secretary, but this suggestion is not enough to explain or justify her restlessness.

Playing Mona is Sandrine Bonnaire, who with her unkempt long hair and hostile expression looks as if she were nurtured on hard times. She won a Cesar Award, the French equivalent of the Oscar, for her portrayal of this disturbing young woman. In its own way, the film has the same impact as the American documentary Streetwise, about Seattle children living like bums.

In the United States with its problem of runaway kids, Vagabond has particular relevance. One leaves the theater feeling uncomfortable while wondering about the existence of women such as Mona and the traumas that set them apart from everyone else.